VW ID.4

I was quoted over €400 for a 2 year old ID3 service with only about 14k on the clock (a Dublin main dealer). They're taking the piss when you consider how easy the services must be.

Yeah there seems to be a definite race to the bottom in terms of service. Manufacturers definitely are aiming to provide the absolute minimum they'll get away with

It's always been like this to some degree but I feel like it's really accelerated recently

To some degree yes, the customer service in Joe Duffy is pretty dire. My previous car was from Windsor Nissan and they were much better

However VW are definitely to blame to some degree

To give an overview, my car failed the 3.7 update because it got stuck and had to be towed to the garage. When I contacted VW Ireland about the tow they said my roadside assistance had expired and I would have to pay for the tow. After some back and forth they agreed to foot the bill but it's a pretty poor customer experience to be told "too bad so sad"

Afterwards the keyless entry wasn't working on the driver's side. This has since been diagnosed to a failed controller costing over €500

I've also a leaking diff seal which cost over €700 to repair. I concede this could happen anytime so I don't blame VW for this

Final issue is a leaking water seal around the reversing camera. When water gets in the picture goes mental and starts showing rainbows. Pretty sure that started after VW were power washing it but again I concede it could have happened anytime. However I don't think that's a reasonable lifetime for an apparently non replaceable seal, so I'm arguing with VW why I should foot the €500 or so for a manufacturing defect

It's also worth pointing out that the camera could be fixed with a new seal costing probably €1 if VW had bothered to include any kind of reparability in the design. Same for the door controller, could be a bad connection or software which could potentially be fixed using a laptop

But that's classic VW group isn't it, make it as hard as possible to fix the cars without buying their specialist parts 🙄

That's bizarre, they did mine as part of the service

Afaik there's 2 types of check. There's a quick one where they just read the battery SOH from the car and the full test where they actually run several charge and discharge cycles

I'm guessing I got the quick one and they were quoting you the full test

I like my ID.4 but VW bricking it during a software update and then telling me I wasn't covered for a tow is extremely poor behaviour

I also wouldn't call it a minor issue, I was out of a car for 3 days and not even the slightest hint of an apology

It isn't so much the issues I've been having, its the customer service from VW and their garages. It's been very unprofessional all the way through

I don't like having to be a Karen and fight customer service agents to see their product is at fault. I tend to be a lot more passive in my dealings with businesses and I try to be constructive whenever possible. I don't think that having an argument with VW customer service should be part of the process

I'll concede that everyone's experience varies but Joe Duffy are one of the main franchises in Dublin for many brands so its kind of hard to escape them

My previous dealings with brand garages from Windsor have been much better. Again it isn't the price so much as the feeling that the service guys in the garage are actually paying attention and trying to solve your issue

With Duffers I get to talk to some brain dead agent who's eyes glaze over as I'm describing issues and couldn't even manage to give me a printout of the estimated price for a repair job

As the car goes, it's great but I couldn't bear dealing with Duffers again so I won't be buying another one for the foreseeable future. We'll see what happens when they move to the direct sales model, maybe it'll force the garages to focus more on customer satisfaction

Like I said, they're responsible for most of the brands in Dublin so even if I jump ship there's not many options

I won't be going with Tesla either, don't want to deal with Elon's BS and I don't like the cars anyways